


Melt

by Mazerrick



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23829211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazerrick/pseuds/Mazerrick
Summary: When Roy met the boy, Alphonse Elric was a soul trapped in a suit of armor, and when he wasn’t, Roy was blind. Three years later, Roy sees the man for the first time.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	Melt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated (5/18/20)

There was a soft knock at the door, which Roy ignored. A moment passed and it sounded again, louder this time, but his eyes didn’t leave the stacks of paperwork piled atop his desk. Despite his best efforts, the dent he was making into the mountains of forms, requests, letters, and other filings was, in a word, pitiful. When the knock came for a third time it was slow, punctuated.

_Knock._

_Knock._

_Knock._

That gave Roy pause. Part of him wanted to wait and see what the Captain would do next, but since he couldn’t say for certain that the next attempt to garner his attention _wouldn’t_ be a bullet through the door, he thought it was in his best interest to acknowledge the woman standing on the other side of the door. He made a quick attempt at straightening out his desk before admitting defeat and looking up. 

“Come in,” he said.

The door cracked open, allowing Captain Hawkeye to peek through. 

“Sir,” she said, “your two-thirty is here.”

Mustang scowled. “I thought I asked you to cancel the rest of my meetings for today Captain. I’m far too behind to be entertaining anyone.”

“I understand that sir. I _did_ cancel your four o’ clock, however-”

“Unless it’s the Fuhrer standing behind you then they can reschedule and come back another day,” he said, waving her off.

“I see. What do you want me to tell them?”

“Give them my most sincere apologies or just make something up, I don’t care. Hell, tell them I’m dead if it gets them to go away. I have to finish this tonight, and I’ll be staying late as it is.”

“Of course, sir,” she nodded.

He managed a quick “thank you” before the door closed behind her. His eyes fell back to Mount Paper and he sighed. _One snap_ , he thought, looking down at his gloves. _One snap and this all goes away. All my problems. Poof_. With another especially dramatic sigh, Roy picked up his pen.

It seemed like an eternity that he slaved away. His mind grew numb with repetition as he read form after form. Scrawling his signature across every blank line felt like signing his soul away. Roy glanced at the clock and found that it wasn’t moving. It kept him trapped there, in a never ending nightmare of black print. At one point he could’ve sworn that the pile of paper in front of him grew. It sat there imperious, taunting him. Each piece a weight pulling him down to the pits of hell. He wailed, but there was no god to hear his cries, just paper.

And then suddenly, it was done. It was as if he awoke from a trance as he signed the last dotted line. There had been enough paper on his desk at the beginning of the day to fuel a fire large enough to keep a small Drachman village warm through the winter, and now it was all gone. Roy pulled his sleeve back to look at his watch as he was gathering his things. Just after eleven. Not bad, not bad at all.

Roy walked out of his office surprised to see Captain Hawkeye still engrossed in her work. She looked up at him with a hint of annoyance in her eyes, and he knew that if he didn’t address it now it would be worse tomorrow. 

“I thought I’d be one of the last ones to leave Captain, you’re not trying to climb past me now are you?” he asked with a smirk.

“When you’re busy I’m busier sir,” she said. “I do have something for you though.”

Hawkeye began to look through one of the drawers in her desk and a fleeting feeling of despair crawled up Roy’s back. 

“Captain if that’s another stack of paperwork for me I’m going to have you court martialed,” he said.

The Captain didn’t respond, presumably because they both knew that he wouldn’t last a week without her, less, if the forecast called for rain. Hawkeye drew out a small slip of paper and held it out to him, wordlessly. Roy took it, not breaking eye contact with her until he looked down and studied the small bit of paper. He looked back up at her and raised an eyebrow. It was a phone number.

“Captain I’m flattered, but you know-”

“That,” she interrupted with a clipped tone, which was how he knew he was in trouble, “is the phone number for the hotel that Alphonse Elric is staying at.”

Oh, right. Alphonse Elric. The Alphonse Elric that he hadn’t seen in three years. The Alphonse Elric that had been kind enough to actually schedule an appointment as not to take away from his very limited free time. The younger brother to the older brother who was going to kick his ass, alchemy or not, for sending said younger brother away without so much as a hello and not contacting him again for… 

Roy checked his watch once more.

...Nine hours.

“I’m going to go make a phone call,” he said.

Going back into his office after he believed he was done for the night was easily one of his least favorite things. Roy generally made sure everything was absolutely perfect before leaving to avoid exactly that. Still, he threw himself back into his chair with no more complaint than a quiet sigh. He put the hotel’s number into the rotary phone and pressed two fingers to his temple as he waited for the call to connect. Could be worse, he reasoned. His eyes drifted to a pile of paperwork that was, thankfully, completed. He grimaced. Yes, could be much worse.

The ringing stopped and a voice sounded through the receiver. “Hello?” 

He waited but the tired-sounding female on the other side of the line said nothing else. That was odd, he thought, a receptionist for a hotel would say more when answering the phone, wouldn’t she? Perhaps he had the wrong number. Roy looked back down at the slip of paper to make sure that, yes, he had called the right number for the hotel, or the number that was written down at least. The woman spoke again, a bit more irritation in her voice this time.

“Hello?”  


“Ah yes,” he coughed. “Sorry about that. I’m looking for an Alphonse Elric?”

“Room Number?”

Room number? Well, at least he knew he was speaking to the right person. Roy flipped over the paper in his hand to find a ‘24’ hastily scrawled on the back.

“Twenty-four,” Roy said.

“Please hold.”

A minute went by. Then a few more. And then a few more after that. Roy glanced up at the clock and then back down to the phone. Was the call even still connected? He felt his sanity slipping. Did flame alchemy work through phones? He wondered. Then he stopped bouncing his leg as he realized that it probably wasn’t a good thing that he felt like snapping his fingers and burning up any mild inconvenience he ran into. Roy glanced up at the clock again. It read a quarter ‘till, much too late to be having any life-altering discoveries. The office was just getting to him, he figured. He was about to give up and hang up the phone when a new voice spoke up.

“Hello?” 

Roy corrected himself, not a new voice, but rather one much deeper than what he’d been anticipating. It was familiar all the same. Unmistakably the voice of Alphonse Elric.

“Alphonse,” he smiled. Whether it was because of the sound of the man’s voice or because he was finally off hold he didn’t know. “I wanted to apologize for sending you away today, and to see if you had the time to sit down and talk before leaving Central.”

“Oh! Don’t worry about that. I completely understand. You’re a general now right? I can’t imagine how busy you must be,” he said.

Leave it to Alphonse to not make a big deal about being blown off. If he did the same to his older brother then… well, he suspected that Edward would’ve just kicked the door open and stormed in anyways. 

“Right on both counts, today was a nightmare if I’m being honest. Still, I feel bad about it. It’s a bit too late to get dinner, but if you’re not too tired I know a few good bars that are still open. Would you be interested in grabbing a drink?”

“That sounds great, though I can’t promise I’ll drink much. Should I try and get a cab or…” Alphonse trailed off. 

“I can pick you up, if that’s fine with you,” Roy offered.

“That works, do you need the address to where I’m staying?”

Roy set the slip of paper down and grabbed a pen. “I do, whenever you’re ready.”

“2200 Gesenburg lane, G-E-S-E-N. That good?”

“Got it,” he answered. “I don’t think that’s too far. See you in about fifteen.”

“See you soon!”

Roy hung up the phone and stood, shoving the paper in his pocket. He walked out his office doors for what would hopefully be the last time that night and began heading for the exit, but not before asking the Captain something.

“Is there any particular reason you felt it unnecessary to remind me that the appointment I was cancelling was for Alphonse Elric?”

Hawkeye didn’t look up from her work as she answered. “Just following orders, sir.”

Roy sighed.


End file.
